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The incredible douchbaggery of Cloud and Friends

So... let me get this straight: There is this Meteor coming to town which is gonna destroy all life as Alexanders knows it and Shinra has a plan to blow it up. Hearing about the plan Cloud and Friends (yes, actually it's Barret and Friends at this point, but Cloud doesn't stop them) steal all the Huge Materia which is the essential part of that plan because they don't want to see the Huge Materia destroyed (hey, it's the Huge Materia or every living thing on the planet, the choice is obvious), they even go (granted, accidentally) to Space to retrieve the last part of Huge Materia.
Now the rocket which was the carrier for a bomb crashes into the Meteor without the bomb and that obviously does jack trout to the Meteor.
And afterwards they stand on the Highwind and discuss how Rufus' plan failed... that they thwarted? What incredible assholes are they?
And don't give me that "They knew the plan would fail!" - no they didn't! Barret actually says he hoped it would succeed, which of course it couldn't because they stole the Huge Materia.
As I'm playing the game right now, I am pretty sure they had no plan of their own how to stop the Meteor - which leads me to the conclusion that they are bastards who just don't want anyone else to save the planet even at the cost of their and everyone elses lives!

1. Using Materia's power harms the planet as well. As in, greatly. That is also why they do not use it again in Advent Children (granted - if one day they decide to make an FFVII-2 they surely for out-universe reasons bring them back like they did in DoC but I am just stating what in-universe reasons for charas are). Hell, before they got to know Hojo wanted to help Sephiroth they also tried to stop him as they did not want to harm the planet by letting the Sister Ray shoot at the Northern Cave once more.
2. It was not just that Rufus' plan failed because they interfered. It was Sephiroth's mind which held the summoned Meteor together. As you might have noticed, the Meteor WAS blown to pieces. So Huge Materia or not, they would have failed. Sephiroth controlled the summoned Meteor and he held back the summon of Holy. There was nothing they could do except to defeat Sephiroth. And even that was done too late as Meteor was too close at that point.
3. Why would they have "no plan"? Cloud's entire journey was about confronting Sephiroth to settle things. Of course his main goal was to face his past and fight it but it would still be connected to Meteor. The entire point was that they all had a reason to fight for. And to fighting for what they loved they would have had to face Sephiroth and therefore the reason of Meteor anyway. They did not say "we are going to fight him" all 5 minutes but it was obvious that there would be no getting around that. And Cloud totally new that when right before CD2 ended, they had their talk about what to do next. First they relied on Holy. But what would have happened even with Holy working? Would they let Sephiroth stay in the crater and wait for him to summon the next Ultimate Destructive Magic? No. Sephiroth always was the root to be destroyed. They all were very well aware that there was a guy meditating under their feet and that maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow but one day there would have to be something that they had to do against him. Especially as over the course of those years he already in fact did absorb much of the lifestream's energy already (with his mind travelling through it, e.g.) and totally without a summoned Meteor. Eventually they would be running out of time.

This is so odd, I made pretty much the same thread around 5 years ago. I agree with you man! -

I've been replaying through FFVII lately, and I just got past the point where you have to collect the Huge Materia. It was there I thought I missed something in my previous playthroughs but no...Cloud and his motley crew of ship thieves hear about the Shinra plan to use Huge Materia to blow up the Meteor and then literally just say "we have to stop them, we have to get that huge materia!". It's not like they even have a plan to use the huge materia, they just jam it all in Bugenhagen's attic.

What's up with this? From what I've seen from Shinra in the second disk, they've been doing nothing but trying to stop Sephiroth and Meteor and doing GOOD for the world (apart from the attempted public executions)...I don't see why Cloud and the others don't help them, or at least just stay out of their way and let them have a bash. Let me try and break it down:

Shinra: They're fighting the Weapons, and manage to kill two of them, they're collecting special weapons to beat Sephiroth (as shown in the crashed gelnika), and they're moving the cannon to try and destroy Sephiroths barrier. Sound like worthy goals to me.

Cloud and co: They have no idea how they're going to destroy the barrier or Sephiroth. They pretty much just make it their mission to totally wreck anything the Shinra are doing.

So is there some hidden reason that they're trying to stop Shinra at this point in the game? Disk one I could see why, but now Sephiroth is clearly the huge threat. It's not like Shinra even want anything to do with Cloud and the others at this point, they're not even pursuing them. Now I know that the huge materia doesn't work anyway, even if you don't collect any of the pieces, but it's not like anyone knew that at the time.
They also even have the cheek to say "Shinra's plan failed" when the rocket doesn't blow up meteor. Yeah no thanks to you, you morons!

1. Using Materia's power harms the planet as well. As in, greatly. That is also why they do not use it again in Advent Children (granted - if one day they decide to make an FFVII-2 they surely for out-universe reasons bring them back like they did in DoC but I am just stating what in-universe reasons for charas are). Hell, before they got to know Hojo wanted to help Sephiroth they also tried to stop him as they did not want to harm the planet by letting the Sister Ray shoot at the Northern Cave once more.
2. It was not just that Rufus' plan failed because they interfered. It was Sephiroth's mind which held the summoned Meteor together. As you might have noticed, the Meteor WAS blown to pieces. So Huge Materia or not, they would have failed. Sephiroth controlled the summoned Meteor and he held back the summon of Holy. There was nothing they could do except to defeat Sephiroth. And even that was done too late as Meteor was too close at that point.
3. Why would they have "no plan"? Cloud's entire journey was about confronting Sephiroth to settle things. Of course his main goal was to face his past and fight it but it would still be connected to Meteor. The entire point was that they all had a reason to fight for. And to fighting for what they loved they would have had to face Sephiroth and therefore the reason of Meteor anyway. They did not say "we are going to fight him" all 5 minutes but it was obvious that there would be no getting around that. And Cloud totally new that when right before CD2 ended, they had their talk about what to do next. First they relied on Holy. But what would have happened even with Holy working? Would they let Sephiroth stay in the crater and wait for him to summon the next Ultimate Destructive Magic? No. Sephiroth always was the root to be destroyed. They all were very well aware that there was a guy meditating under their feet and that maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow but one day there would have to be something that they had to do against him. Especially as over the course of those years he already in fact did absorb much of the lifestream's energy already (with his mind travelling through it, e.g.) and totally without a summoned Meteor. Eventually they would be running out of time.

The point the OP is making is that Cloud and the Player only know they are justified due to hindsight, and there was no in-game evidence to justify their actions. The party doesn't know about Holy until the Huge Materia quest is over, no one knew that Meteor couldn't be destroyed by the Big Materia, so there really is no justification for stopping Shin-Ra when Cloud and Co. never had any plan on how to get past Sephiroth's barrier to confront him.

The party never had a plan nor any knowledge within the game to justify their actions. Shin-Ra was the one being proactive while the party basically got in their way because they didn't really know what else to do, and it's only hindsight that clears them of being stupid and it all just ends up being bad writing on Square's part.

The point the OP is making is that Cloud and the Player only know they are justified due to hindsight, and there was no in-game evidence to justify their actions. The party doesn't know about Holy until the Huge Materia quest is over, no one knew that Meteor couldn't be destroyed by the Big Materia, so there really is no justification for stopping Shin-Ra when Cloud and Co. never had any plan on how to get past Sephiroth's barrier to confront him.

The party never had a plan nor any knowledge within the game to justify their actions. Shin-Ra was the one being proactive while the party basically got in their way because they didn't really know what else to do, and it's only hindsight that clears them of being stupid and it all just ends up being bad writing on Square's part.

There are plenty of points to defend the writing of this game but the two of us are exact opposites so you would not actually care about it anyway (just like you claim Sephiroth is flat when I can easily write page over page about multiple layers of this character). And yes, whether people like it or not, Cloud and co. did use some Materia sometimes but that does not change the fact that the heroes knew that multiple usage of Materia would harm the planet even more. And that was implied as well as stated, even easier to understand after Square explained it once more how the description of Materia is meant after its been lead a bit ambigious in the game (so whether people bring in the word "retconning" or not will not change that sometimes things are not even retconned but just need some clearer explanation - actually it would have been okay enough even without it). Using Materia does not actually just summon and manifest planet's energy by the body of the caller using the Materia, the Cetra's knowledge, as tool to make use of the planet's power. In "reality", when using Materia the user drains the planet's energy as well. Now imagine that being done whenever Shinra makes use of Great Materia. It is not perfect considering Materia is the super-useful equipment stuff in-game but that's how double-edged things are. You can win good stuff from it but eventually it backfires. Cloud and co. did well in getting the great deal of Great Materia to hide it from Shinra. Acting like they wanted to get a Materia from a train, a materia from a submarine, a materia from a rocket and a materia from a fort for no reason will not change that they did it so ShinRa could not use it, harm the planet, et cetera. The view of "but I rather accept the smaller problem" is absolutely pointless as that is exactly what those themes are about. Humans cannot just always burn ressources thinking "uh, pff, we need it now, it is gonna help, we surely can handle it later". There are people who want to find a way more efficient way. And giving Materia to a power-hungry energy company that harms the planet as well is not the solution.

Really the only thing that speaks against it is "we can still use the stuff in-game" but that is why in AC they stick to not using Materia anyway. As mentioned in my first reply, I am relatively sure that there would be Materia included for a sequel, whenever that could happen - but that would be a storytelling problem for that sequel then and not for FFVII-1. Call their own limited usage of materia hypocritical if you want. I could justify that as well but that would be a bit unfair because I would somewhat gloss over the argument why they have to protect Materia from others and since I am fair I won't. For them I at least know that their ultimate goal is to protect the planet, not to use much more Greater Materia, Ultimate Destructive Magics or Mako Reactors to suck out the last bit of life. There are three sides to fight each other. With one we have a good end in sight. With the other two, we have THE end in sight. And thinking "but the guys had no plan so they should have given it to bad ending 2 instead of bad ending 1 because bad ending 2 is at least delayed" is quite troublesome. If we live in a world where there is absolutely no other way, maybe then I can agree with you about that. But the fact that after that they still had the will to fight they clearly haven't given up all hope. They gave up hope the moment they defeated Sephiroth and Meteor started to destroy Midgar and when they thought only the planet can decide now (and if someone wants to be very picky even that can be called some sort of hope). Whether you ignore what the story is about now (just like many do that either call it bad or are upset anytime someone tells them they have forgotten this and that official stuff - something that is not exclusive to FFVII of course) is up to you. I just want to bring in what is important.

Would using huge materia as a sort of explosive material drain the planet of energy in the same way as when a person uses the materia? I don't remember the game telling me (or the party) that simply using already existing materia would damage the planet. Is this something that was lost in translation?

Even if it does, the options at that point in the game are either allow meteor to crash down and definitely completely smurf up the planet, or use huge materia to blow it up even if this bears the risk of damaging the planet. It could still be the lesser of two evils to use the huge materia, and Cloud & Co. wrecks this plan for no good reason except "shinra's doing it and we hate them", with no regard the results of their actions.

everything is wrapped in gray
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?

Would using huge materia as a sort of explosive material drain the planet of energy in the same way as when a person uses the materia? I don't remember the game telling me (or the party) that simply using already existing materia would damage the planet. Is this something that was lost in translation?

That's the "problem" here. They always talk about how taking away the planet's knowledge would eventually kill the planet as it can no longer keep up its rebirth cycle and also not growth this way. It was implied how Materia works in-game and then later continued to flesh out the explanation in case it was not obvious enough. Of course it was never said if "a machine using materia" or "a person using materia" works perfectly the same but it does not change that materia always results in energy being drained from the planet as they do not just get it out of nowhere. Of course another argument to be considered of high value is, if you just blow up this Materia, you also blow up the Ancient's knowledge within that Materia. Also not very hot.

Originally Posted by Mirage

It could still be the lesser of two evils to use the huge materia, and Cloud & Co. wrecks this plan for no good reason except "shinra's doing it and we hate them", with no regard the results of their actions.

But that was exactly what I was talking about. We cannot always just think "oh the lesser of evil" and be fine with it. Sometimes we should be smarter than that. And as said, it was not like Shinra having all those powers would just result in a one-time event. Look at the Sister Ray. As long as they have the ways to suck up planet energy and kill the planet they use it (of course Cloud and the others did not know that the third shot wih the Sister Ray was meant to strengthen Sephiroth but that is not the point). I can see no scenario where Cloud and the others letting them use the Great Materia would be a wise choice. I can see the point of someone having a problem with the entire Materia story with the heroes still using a small portion of it, though. However, I have already written about that, of course. The thing is, Shinra was just a slower Sephiroth at this point. We want to rule the world and make our lives more comfortable? Planetary Energy. For years. We want to defeat a WEAPON? Planetary Energy. We want to destroy a Meteor? Planetary Energy/Getting rid of the Ancient's knowledge. We want to destroy another WEAPON and get rid of a psychic barrier? Planetary Energy. We want to continue being assholes on the future because no one actually stops ups? Planetary Energy. We are the ShinRa Electric Power Company. We own this planet. As said, I do understand that in some desperate situations with absolutely no other hope in sight people consider "bad 1" over "bad 2" but I think for the sake of the story the decision of the heroes was better.

But that was exactly what I was talking about. We cannot always just think "oh the lesser of evil" and be fine with it. Sometimes we should be smarter than that. And as said, it was not like Shinra having all those powers would just result in a one-time event. Look at the Sister Ray. As long as they have the ways to suck up planet energy and kill the planet they use it (of course Cloud and the others did not know that the third shot wih the Sister Ray was meant to strengthen Sephiroth but that is not the point). I can see no scenario where Cloud and the others letting them use the Great Materia would be a wise choice. I can see the point of someone having a problem with the entire Materia story with the heroes still using a small portion of it, though. However, I have already written about that, of course.

Except you will recall the lesser of two evils was good here because without Shinra destroying Sephiroth's barrier, our heroes could never have gotten inside NOrthern Crater to destroy him.

Shinra are power-hungry and evil but they're not suicidal. They realize their survival is dependent upon Sephiroth and Meteor being stopped and thus they want it every bit as badly as our heroes. And our heroes owe Shinra's "Sister Ray Plan" a lot for saving them and the rest of the world.

So, if one flagrant abuse of the planet's power and knowledge was the solution, why not another?

Except you will recall the lesser of two evils was good here because without Shinra destroying Sephiroth's barrier, our heroes could never have gotten inside NOrthern Crater to destroy him.

If would not say it was "good". It still did harm the planet. It did have a good side effect. Just another example of the infamous "sacrifice something for what we assume to be the greater good". Not that I disagree that not defeating Sephiroth would have been the real problem but I think "good" is not the very best word here. Only in a very picky way. The Sister Ray was readied to fire 3x in the story, twice by using the Reactors in Midgar. How incredibly concerned they were about its use should show that it was not just a small thing. I would even consider that this might have been a greater problem for the planet than sacrificing a Great Materia. But this is very speculative so I won't use it.

Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Shinra are power-hungry and evil but they're not suicidal. They realize their survival is dependent upon Sephiroth and Meteor being stopped and thus they want it every bit as badly as our heroes. And our heroes owe Shinra's "Sister Ray Plan" a lot for saving them and the rest of the world.

So, if one flagrant abuse of the planet's power and knowledge was the solution, why not another?

You can call those actions "suicidal" in their own rights. Just as humans in our world burn ressources that regrow at sluggish pace or not at all. Sure, we do not mind because we are dead when it actually matters - which is already a problem on its own. But I think it is at least something people should think about it. Just like there are people on out planet who think "oh crap, there actually are problems that already exist from that and we do no want more, what can we do instead". Extremely shortening the planet's lifespan and even its rebirth and growth cycle and that always be the answer to everything can't be the way. And if you ask me, it would be a case of way worse writing. You guys make me think they could have actually made it way more interesting by pointing out those aspects and conflict even more especially at this moment but I am fine with it. I already got that a great part of CD2 was to not kill the planet by killing the planet.

There are plenty of points to defend the writing of this game but the two of us are exact opposites so you would not actually care about it anyway (just like you claim Sephiroth is flat when I can easily write page over page about multiple layers of this character). And yes, whether people like it or not, Cloud and co. did use some Materia sometimes but that does not change the fact that the heroes knew that multiple usage of Materia would harm the planet even more. And that was implied as well as stated, even easier to understand after Square explained it once more how the description of Materia is meant after its been lead a bit ambigious in the game (so whether people bring in the word "retconning" or not will not change that sometimes things are not even retconned but just need some clearer explanation - actually it would have been okay enough even without it). Using Materia does not actually just summon and manifest planet's energy by the body of the caller using the Materia, the Cetra's knowledge, as tool to make use of the planet's power. In "reality", when using Materia the user drains the planet's energy as well. Now imagine that being done whenever Shinra makes use of Great Materia. It is not perfect considering Materia is the super-useful equipment stuff in-game but that's how double-edged things are. You can win good stuff from it but eventually it backfires. Cloud and co. did well in getting the great deal of Great Materia to hide it from Shinra. Acting like they wanted to get a Materia from a train, a materia from a submarine, a materia from a rocket and a materia from a fort for no reason will not change that they did it so ShinRa could not use it, harm the planet, et cetera. The view of "but I rather accept the smaller problem" is absolutely pointless as that is exactly what those themes are about. Humans cannot just always burn ressources thinking "uh, pff, we need it now, it is gonna help, we surely can handle it later". There are people who want to find a way more efficient way. And giving Materia to a power-hungry energy company that harms the planet as well is not the solution.

Really the only thing that speaks against it is "we can still use the stuff in-game" but that is why in AC they stick to not using Materia anyway. As mentioned in my first reply, I am relatively sure that there would be Materia included for a sequel, whenever that could happen - but that would be a storytelling problem for that sequel then and not for FFVII-1. Call their own limited usage of materia hypocritical if you want. I could justify that as well but that would be a bit unfair because I would somewhat gloss over the argument why they have to protect Materia from others and since I am fair I won't. For them I at least know that their ultimate goal is to protect the planet, not to use much more Greater Materia, Ultimate Destructive Magics or Mako Reactors to suck out the last bit of life. There are three sides to fight each other. With one we have a good end in sight. With the other two, we have THE end in sight. And thinking "but the guys had no plan so they should have given it to bad ending 2 instead of bad ending 1 because bad ending 2 is at least delayed" is quite troublesome. If we live in a world where there is absolutely no other way, maybe then I can agree with you about that. But the fact that after that they still had the will to fight they clearly haven't given up all hope. They gave up hope the moment they defeated Sephiroth and Meteor started to destroy Midgar and when they thought only the planet can decide now (and if someone wants to be very picky even that can be called some sort of hope). Whether you ignore what the story is about now (just like many do that either call it bad or are upset anytime someone tells them they have forgotten this and that official stuff - something that is not exclusive to FFVII of course) is up to you. I just want to bring in what is important.

If you will, this is actually a very realistic and important thing.

No hard feelings. My last two gil here.

I still feel like you're glossing over the issue here. It's fine and dandy to say the party took the hard road out of some misguided ssense of lawful good intention, but we're also talking about a group of people who started off their journey as a terrorist organization who strongly believed that a few hundred lives was worth the cost to save the planet. So Cloud and Co. pretty much have already proven that they are fine with the whole "end justifies the means" aspect, and so this whole scenario still comes across a bit hypocritical. While it's nice to say the party tried to take a third option instead of choosing the lesser of two evils, it doesn't really solve the problem that the party really had no reason to believe the plan wouldn't work, and that their time may have been better spent not fighting the Shin-Ra but actually coming up with a means to get to Sephiroth to stop the problem at its source.

Another element I would point out is that the hindsight issue works both ways. We, the player, know the party is justified in stopping them because a first playthrough already shows that the Shin-Ra plan was always going to fail, but the other problem here is that we also know the lost of the Huge Materia really doesn't affect the story either, meaning that regardless of what happens, both groups are basically wasting each others time, and the only real solution is to stop Sephiroth himself. So basically the whole story arc is kind of a waste of time, cause both scenarios are a foregone conclusion and it's only practical purpose is to give the player a means to obtain Master Materia which is hardly required to beat the game.

I'll admit I've skipped over most of the long replies, but I do still think the original point stands. I've only played the original game (and watched, and tried to forget Advent Children) so I think it helps that I can take what is given in just that game at face value.

It is a weak, weak point in the game. I'm even pretty sure that after they've screwed over Shinra they say "Damn, kinda hoped it worked" "Wonder if we've been wrong all this time" and then just kinda say they need to move on and think of what to do next. So they clearly don't know what they were doing.

If it hadn't been for Shinra, two weapons would still be alive, and the barrier surrounding Sephiroth would still be up, I don't see what the issue is here. Cloud and the others should have just let them duke it out and then do what they feel is best after it was over. If they had been more efficient in stopping Shinra, the barrier surrounding the crater would still be up!

As for the sister ray draining the planets energy, does this even come up in the game? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, aside from the whole "Mako Energy is draining the planet in general" thing. I don't think they really cared about stoping the Sister Ray until it was going to blow up Midgar.